Alternative Educators Form National Network for Change

Orlando, Fla--After five years of debate, a group of
alternative-school educators has decided to create an informal national
"affiliation'' to foster communication among themselves and promote
nontraditional approaches to education.

Representatives from 34 states, meeting here in June at the 19th
annual conference on educational alternatives, agreed to establish the
Affiliation of Alternative School Associations and Personnel.

Before approving the new network, participants considered and
rejected a national organization modeled along more conventional
lines.

The organization "will not recognize or empower any one spokesman
for alternative education, or require national dues or a typical
structure like that used in state associations," states the proposal
adopted by the conference.

Instead, sponsors explained, the affiliation will serve as a vehicle
for communication between the state organizations, which will volunteer
for such tasks as developing a national directory of alternative
schools and disseminating information about succcessful programs.

The affiliation represents "a modest but deliberate attempt to
provide a sense of solidarity to persons who are attempting to do some
innovative things to reform public education," said Rita Thrasher, a
Florida teacher and chairman of the conference.

Setting in Stone?

Although alternative educators have formed at least 18 state
associations in the past decade, many veterans of the field have
resisted rec4ommendations that the group adopt a formal structure at
the national level.

That reluctance has stemmed in part from what some have seen as the
lack of a need for such an organization. The success of alternative
programs depends largely on local actions, participants said.

"There has been a real concern that if there were an organization,
several things would be set in stone that people would rather not have
set," added Robert L. Fizzell, a teacher and executive director of
Washington State's Alternative Learning Association.

"We have talked for 18 years about a definition for alternative
education, and have never agreed on one," he observed. "We really don't
need one."

Though most of the schools represented are publicly funded, they
have little else in common, ranging from 1960's-style open-classroom
programs to dropout-prevention programs developed this decade.

Mr. Fizzell and others are also wary that lobbying for alternative
education at the national level would lead to the creation of one or
more categorical federal programs.

"Then we would become a special class of school with a special class
of students," he said. "What we've always envisioned is that all
schools would become options."

'Window of Opportunity'

Several participants noted that the growth of movements for
school-based management and parental choice provides "a window of
opportunity'' for the expansion of the nontraditional teaching methods
they espouse.

Deborah Meier--the movement's best-known advocate--said she was
initially opposed to the idea of options and choice when asked in 1974
to establish the first Central Park East school in New York City's
Community District 4.

"My own political and social values made me hostile to the 1960's
talk about alternatives," she said. "I was convinced that the rest of
you out there who might have taken another path were copping out."

But the concepts advanced by alternative educators--in some cases
for decades--have now become the foundations of the movement to
restructure schools, Ms. Meier and others noted.

In many cases, they said, alternative schools owe their survival to
having maintained a low profile andavoided the attention of district
officials. Alternative programs are often the first to be cut during
lean budget years, and face pressures to conform to efforts to
standardize schools.

But with the emergence of the restructuring debate, said Lynn P.
Hartzler, consultant on independent study and public schools of choice
for the California Department of Education, "a lot of alternative
educators are saying 'Hey, I've been demonstrating what you're talking
about."'

Further information on the Affiliation of Alternative School
Associations and Personnel is available from state associations or from
Raymond Morley, Iowa Department of Education, Bureau of Compensatory
and Equity Education, Grimes State Office Building, Des Moines, Iowa
50319-0146; (515) 281-3786.

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